‘It looked like Coke’: Young mum left horrified as dark brown liquid comes out of her taps as she runs a bath for her baby in fire-ravaged town
- Young mother has been left disgusted after bath water turned sickly black colour
- Michelle Potts from Lithgow in NSW Blue Mountains said water at first was clear
- But she said when she turned around to undress her baby the liquid turned black
- ‘It looked like Coke, that is how dark the colour of the water was,’ the mother said
- Town council said the water contains sediment but does not pose a health risk
- Lithgow has been hit with water supply issues residents claim are getting worse
- Demand for water during December 21 blaze in area caused water main to break
A young mother has been left disgusted and horrified after running a bath for her baby in a town recovering from bushfire to see the water turn a sickly black colour.
Michelle Potts, from Lithgow in the Blue Mountains north-west of Sydney, said she saw the unsightly-coloured liquid stream out of her tap in the past week.
Ms Potts said while the water first ran clear, when she turned away to undress her daughter the liquid streaming into the bathtub suddenly turned a much darker shade.
A young mother has been left disgusted and horrified after running a bath (left) for her baby in bushfire-affected Lithgow in New South Wales’ Blue Mountains only to see it turn a sickly black colour. Brown water pictured right last week coming from a local business tap
‘It looked like Coke, that is how dark the colour of the water was. It was just gross,’ the mother told 9News.
Lithgow City Council has said the water contains iron and manganese sediment, which while unpleasant to look at does not pose a health risk.
The mother’s putrid discovery comes as the nearly 22,000 residents of the idyllic town on the national park’s western edge battle water outages they say have become worse in the past two months.
Lithgow saw its water supply muddied after the Gospers Mountain fire destroyed about five homes on December 21.
In a water supply update, the council said high demand from firefighters battling the blaze had caused a water main to break on December 23.
Residents were still dealing with dirty water though as late as Christmas Eve, with one saying the lack of water supply heightened concern already high from the advancing flames.
Others in the valley town have now taken preventative measures including buying their own water (one resident’s supply pictured) to make sure they don’t get caught out by the next outage
‘We were all on edge and guess what, the water went out. It was panic. We had no water, there was wind and it was just a nightmare,’ resident Macgregor Ross said.
The ongoing outages have meanwhile forced The Lithgow Tin Shed to close for five days in the past six weeks – resulting in a loss of business of about $60,000.
Mr Ross has called for the whole water system in Lithgow to be replaced – financed by the state and federal government – in a change.org petition entitled Fix Lithgow water.
‘Continually patching up one part of the system only leads to a break down in another part of the system,’ he wrote in the petition.
A bathtub in Lithgow is pictured a murky green. Residents are calling for the whole water system in Lithgow to be replaced
‘We call on our local State & Federal members and the governments they serve on to provide the necessary funds to rebuild Lithgow’s failing water delivery system.’
Others in the valley town have also taken preventative measures to make sure they don’t get caught out by the next outage.
One resident Tom Strasser posted in a local community Facebook page he had bought three 20-litre containers of water.
‘Don’t get caught out without water when the next water outage hits Lithgow, and it it will,’ he wrote.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Lithgow City Council for further comment.